Ostler: Let the children play, 49ers say

President Obama has expressed concern over the increasing health risks of football and said he would have reservations about letting his son play football, if he had a son.

This might be the smoking gun that proves Obama isn’t really an American. But I’ll leave that matter in the hands of solid All-American vigilantes like Donald Trump.

As for Obama’s concerns, as serious and valid as they might be, they didn’t resonate much with the group of 49ers who met with the media Monday afternoon. Their concern level was Code Beige.

That’s probably not a surprise. Men who are making millions of dollars and are prepping to play on the biggest sports stage in America aren’t likely to use this pulpit to denounce the game.

But, seriously, it’s a bit unsettling to chat with fellows like Alex Boone and Aldon Smith and know that some of these men, too high a percentage of them, are the football-concussion casualties and walking wounded of 10 and 20 years down the road.

Part of the deal of playing pro football is shutting out the real world, denying the reality, or at least accepting the potentially gruesome trade-off.

So it was that among the men polled informally Monday, none of them was even close to hopping on Obama’s worry wagon.

Head coach Jim Harbaugh set the tone when asked about the president’s comments.

“I have a 4-month-old, will soon be 5-month-old, Jack Harbaugh,” Jim Harbaugh said, “and if President Obama feels that way, then there’ll be a little less competition for Jack Harbaugh when he gets old enough.”

It was one of Harbaugh’s light moments, a brief departure from his autopilot answers, a flash of his charm. Some might say that Harbaugh and his players were trivializing a very serious matter of national concern, but I’m going to defend them.

It’s wonderful that the problem is getting attention and study, but football is not only legal, it is woven into the American fabric. Some critics liken football to cigarette smoking as a menace to society. But smoking is a dirty bad habit that entraps millions of people, many of whom regret their choice but can’t escape it. Smoking doesn’t build much character.

Football is a game. Eventually it might die, killed by lawsuits and by a higher reasoning that can’t justify the increasing level of violence and the growing knowledge of the dangers.

But for now, these are men playing a legit sport, and the danger and violence, in some ways, only increases the attraction.

“I don’t agree with” Obama’s POV, Baltimore head coach John Harbaugh said. “Football’s a great game. Tough, challenging. Hard. It brings out the best in you. It’s a manhood test.”

There were no dissenters at the 49ers’ media chats.

“I’d let my kid play, absolutely,” Boone, an offensive lineman, told me. “I mean, it’s a physical sport. You grow up understanding it’s physical. … It takes a different kind of guy to play this game, I think. There are going to be injuries, there are going to be problems, but we’re working on trying to correct ’em.”

Boone’s personal concussion count: “I don’t know.”

Linebacker NaVorro Bowman said, “I got into football by seeing other people play and seeing how physical it is, knowing that you have to tackle and you may get hit. That’s the choice I made as a child, and I’ll let my children make their choices.

“I don’t necessarily think it’s not safe – I think it can be played in a safe way – but I’m definitely not going to cut it off from my child.”

Bowman’s concussion count: “None.”

Smith, a linebacker (no concussions – “maybe close, but not the full thing”), joined the chorus.

“If I ever have kids, whatever they want to do, they can do it,” he said. “The game that we signed up for is football. We didn’t sign up for tennis. We didn’t sign up for swimming.”

At some point, the anti-football movement will begin pushing for age limits, for the same reason we have child-labor laws.

“If (my son) wants to play,” Boone added, “he can do whatever he wants. He’s his own man.”

An 8-year-old might be his own man, but he’s still somebody’s little boy.

But for the 49ers, football has been very, very good to them, and you can’t reasonably expect them to denounce it (“Thank God!” says Roger Goodell).

I would absolutely discourage any young person from playing football, but I understood fullback Bruce Miller’s defiance when I asked him if he would stop his son from playing.